Fabian Marder , Torsten Masson , Julian Sagebiel, Christina Martini , Martin Quaas , Immo Fritsche 

Previous research has mainly considered economic factors and personal psychological factors (e.g., personal pro-environmental attitudes) as determinants of investment behavior for renewable energies. However, less is known about how social identities, i.e. the human capacity to think and act as a member of a social group, can shape green investment behavior. Combining insights from economics and psychology, the current research investigates if collective pro-environmental motivation (e.g., pro-environmental ingroup norms, collective climate efficacy beliefs) can uniquely add to the explanation of investment decisions and the acceptance of policies for renewable energies. Results from a multi-country survey (31 European countries, N = 18,037), including a discrete choice experiment, showed that collective pro-environmental motivation was positively correlated with the acceptance of green energy policies and negatively correlated with discounting of future benefits (money discount rate) in investment decisions for renewable energies. Importantly, collective pro-environmental motivation remained a significant predictor of policy acceptance and the discount rate after controlling for personal pro-environmental motivation. Furthermore, the associations between collective pro-environmental motivation and our outcome measures were stronger for respondents highly identified with their group compared to low identifiers. Our findings suggest that collective pro-environmental motivation provides a unique opportunity to increase support for and participation in the transformation towards carbon-neutrality.